This invention pertains to the field of molecular dissociation lasers and more particularly to the field of molecular dissociation lasers which are pumped by laser induced collisions.
The use of molecular photodissociation as a means for producing photo-fragments in selected excited states has been summarized in a review paper entitled, "Quantum Efficiency of Florescence Excited by Photodissociation in Metal Halide Vapors and Applications", IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. QE-15, No. 7, July 1979, pp. 579-594, by Jakob Maya. A wide variety of atomic resonance line and molecular lasers have been fabricated using selective photodissociation as the inversion mechanism. However, the availability of practicable pump lasers has limited the choice of target molecules to those which absorb and dissociate at wavelengths of .about.1900 A or greater. These systems have generally yielded lasers in the visible or near-infrared and the extension of photodissociation techniques to other molecular systems to produce new VUV laser sources has proven difficult due to the lack of suitable pump sources at wavelengths shorter than 1900 A.